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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Cold Memory & Hot Memory

Cold memory contains contextualised information about one's life at different levels of organisation, with increasingly specific information at each stage. The first and most accessible stage contains information relating to 'lifetime periods'...The next stage contains information about 'general events'...Event specific knowledge is the next stage...In addition to the contextual information stored, sensory and perceptual information (referred to as 'hot memory') is also linked to this event specific knowledge.

'Hot' memory includes detailed sensory information as well as cognitive and emotional perceptions and physiological and motor responses, all of which are intertwined. Unlike with cold memories, there is evidence that the limbic structures associated with emotion are heavily involved in sensory perceptual representations of events. For traumatic events, these sensory perceptual representations are known as 'fear networks' or 'fear structures.'